A message from The Lord Governor of Praetoria - New command is imminent

He placed the Dataslate on his desk and blankly looked off into the distance. His dead eyes were dry and scratchy from the lack of sleep. He imagined that any other man might sob given the tempest of feelings he had inside, but no - Margrave Chretzo Sigenandus had not been brought up to cry. Men of his breeding never cried, they were bread for action. 

The Ruins of Medusa V: The Issue of Inquisitor Sasppenny.

Prologue

The situation was tense. Fifty of the Emperors beloved Blood Angel Space Marines surrounded the mixed Praetorian Guard force. Neither side had moved as they waited. Fifteen, twenty, then thirty minutes passed. The two ranking officers, Major Holtman and Colonel Ackland, exchanged knowing glances. Finally Ackland offered, 

“I say, this is getting rather ridiculous. Hmm, Stand fast old boy, I’ll see to it.”

With that, Ackland marched out to a Blood Angel shielded in gleaming gold armour. After saluting he said 

“My Lord Captain, Do you have orders?” 

The Blood Angel Captain blankly stared down at the Colonel from his ornate battle mask. There was silence for a moment, then in a booming yet softly rounded voice the golden marine spoke, 

“We are here, as are you, at the bidding of Inquisitor Virgil Sasppenny. We await His holy orders.”

“Yes Lord, but may I respectfully point out that the storm will soon descend on the planet again. If the Inquisitor has been waylaid we cannot stay here indefinitely. We engaged a traitor force on our journey here; it would be unfortunate if some ill fate had befallen the Inquisitor.”

There was silence, until finally the Blood Angel spoke again, 

“Noted.”

Ackland tuned to march back to his fellow Praetorians, a sea of scarlet girt by blood red. He whispered to himself

“Sorry my good chap, but old Sasppenny won’t be giving out any execution orders today.”

 Inquisitor Virgil Sasppenny, Missing In Action on Medusa V, presumed dead.
Search attempts withdrawn due to warp storms. 

Introducing a new 40k Guard army!

After receiving some pickelhaube heads from Curious Constructs I have started on a new small regiment. 

Full fluff to follow but to give you an idea...

“The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.”

"Where some states have an army, the Prutenian Army has a state!”

“The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night”

New officers for the meat works!

Having decided to kill off my officers in the style of Colonel Scipio's army I have made up various new officers to lead my men. As I fight battles I’ll give these guys names and background stories. I have only just started their painting but here is where I'm at:

Armored WIP

As sighted in my previous battle post, I pulled some of my tanks out of the shed. The first 2 were a Demolisher and converted Hydra.

Some Finished Men!! (and some WIP)

A few weeks ago I finally finished off some of my red coats and a few Lascannons. The hardest part was commandeering the camera to get some shots of them...

2000p game. Killed everything. Lost nothing. Over by turn 4.

...and I really mean I lost nothing- not even one Guardsman fell.

The game was Guard verses the new Chaos Space Marines (of course), against my regular opponent.

The question is; am I just really good at playing Guard or is the new Chaos codex a bit poo? I suspect it’s a bit of both considering that I have played Guard pretty much non-stop for the last 15 years and also a few people have griped about the codex on the blogosphere.
(Edit: Or a third point, as people have pointed out in the comments, it was a lucky match-off of a Rock vs Scissors battle!)

Free cover? I'll take it!

I have a narrative battle report that will follow this post but I wanted to simply discuss the point first.

Victoria Miniatures vs Curious Constructs

Victoria Lamb vs Rob Angell: Two different people doing two different things that on the surface seem very similar.

No. It isn't a competition. But as a miniature hobbyist you might be looking at purchasing from one of these two (if not both) and if you are new to this niche in our hobby you might be interested in who these people are and how it is that their miniatures and conversion ‘bits’ are so similar but again so different! If you’re not new to either of these names you may be still interested in my thoughts and honest review of the products produced by these two little companies.

This is not a short review. I felt the need to do this properly which meant first exploring who these people are, how their stores developed, which then explain most of the differences between the miniatures.

The Ruins of Medusa V: The Incursion at Camp Exceller

The shortest game of 40k I have ever played, all over by turn 2!

+++++++++++++++For The Inquisition Eyes Only+++++++++++++++
The Holy Orders of the Emperor's Inquisition 

Inquisitor Virgil Sasppenny: Interrogation transcript of Corporal Neill, Imperial Guard soldier present at Demonic incursion Medusa V 2 748 856.M41.

The Ruins of Medusa V: The Action at Scourged Hill

Several weeks after the skirmish that became known as the engagement of “Vanquish Vally” a mixed patrol force were scouting an area nearby.

The Ruins of Medusa V: The Engagement of Vanquish Vally

1st Expeditionary Regiment -Veterans of Medusa V (Represented by a DKoK list) 

Lady Lieutenant Reave.

The ‘Fleet Regiment’ was holding a defensive position overlooking a forested valley to the west of Hive Perseus. Their two Earthshakers and three Heavy Mortars were ready to respond to any enemy that advanced on this flank although strategic analyses had suggested this was unlikely.  As the morning fog began to lift from the valley a Sergeant from the 3^rd squad alerted the two lieutenants (Creswell and Reave) to the sound of cavalry approaching. Before either of them could ready the men, Colonel Ackland, commander of the 3^rd Brigade- Macharian Thunder Guard, stormed into the camp with his horse frothing at the bit. He was accompanied by his mounted command squad and a further 10 veteran cavalry troopers. Lady Lieutenant Reave snapped a salute and called “Officer on parade…”  But she was curtly drowned out by the red faced Colonel - “Stand too; Chaos is here; Nurgle Marines, Commence Bombardment! Lieutenants! Fan the men out! Cover the Guns and Hold Fast!”

The BIG WIP Post!

With a few of the Troths off my desk I thought it was about time to look at what else is going on.

So what have we got? Two Praetorian officers, a sergeant, walkers, some cavalry and a Queen.

Staring with the coolest stuff first- the cavalry!

I have been coming back to these off and on since I finished my first lot. It takes quite a bit of time just to get the horses ready and build the lances so I'm ok with their slow progress. 

These 5 use pistoleer heads, Curious Constructs Lancer Torsos, legs and arms, and my scratch built hunting lances. 

Troths (Homo Sapien Verdantus) – Troopers of the Imperial Garden

The Troth, also known as Homo Sapien Verdantus, are an officially recognized strain of Abhuman within the Imperium, endemic on the world of Verdant (Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition Rulebook pg.405).

As their name suggests, they have pledged an oath of fidelity to the Emperor and fulfil their duty to the Imperium whenever called.  Verdant was originally classified as a Death World, but through the tireless work of the Troths it now serves the Imperium as an Agri-World and Pleasure World (or Garden World). With a world of outstanding natural beauty, many Troths have dedicated their lives to pampering the important Imperial visitors they often receive. These are frequently members of major noble houses, members of the Navis Nobilite, Planetary Governors, important Ecclesiarchy officials like Confessors and Cardinals, Imperial Commanders, Rogue Traders and wealthy Chartist Captains. Other Troths pay the Imperial tithes by tending huge jungle crops or farms of edible fungus. Finally, like many colonised worlds and other abhuman races, the Troths also maintain a tithe of men to fight in the Imperial Guard, (or as humans jokingly refer to it, the Troth Imperial Garden).

My Top 10 Blogs

I just hit 50 followers, wow what a milestone. To all my new blogger friends - Welcome!

I really love tracking down new blogs to follow. Blog networks are great for that but another way I find some real gems is by looking at what blogs other people follow.  With that in mind, I thought it would be cool to highlight my favourite 10 blogs and tell everyone why I like them.  This was way harder then I initially thought, but after a lot of cutting down, I have a list. I found that there were really two groups in my top ten - big well known blogs written by veteran bloggers that have a large following (heavy weights), and smaller less known blogs that are written by equally talented people but just haven’t been around as long or are less publicised (middle weights).

So without further ado, in no particular order, Col. Ackland’s favourite 10 blogs:

Medusa V: The Lost Magistratus

Not all of the civilians made it off Medusa V when the storm came.  It was assumed that they were killed. They were, but they didn't stay dead!

I finally went and brought a copy of 6^th ed from my GW and I was dying to give it a go, so I thought a small solo game was in order.  I also wanted to try out Spyrle’s custom solo mission, but in the end I ignored a few rules (+2 attacks to traitors on the charge, the ‘They came from the warp’ rules,  and the ‘traitors must fire first’ rule). It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, but I could see with the force that I had put together those additions would have made it too one sided. Really I wanted to see how 6^th played out with two matched infantry armies and there was enough other stuff to try and remember! All the other rules in the scenario worked really well, so I may give it a full go another time.

WIP-Praetorian 40th Line Regiment.

Its been a fortnight since I reorganised my praetorian forces so I thought it would be a good time for a progress update. I have started on the first 40 men. They will form a blob squad of 30 (Sergeants with power weapons, and a commissar which is still to come) with a command squad of 4 grenade launchers and a special weapon squad of 3 grenade launchers. I have a second one of these 40 man firing blobs to do as well. I can't decide whether to convert up some plasma rifles to go in the main blob? If I do want to, I will convert up 6 from the 2nd batch of men and swap 3 into this lot. OK! On to some pictures and remember these are still WIP.

"suddenly one of the models turned to look at me" HELP I'm losing my mind!!

I started painting these a fortnightly ago.
Just as I was getting into the painting, suddenly one of the men turned to look at me. Well I know that's impossible but....

20 Questions

OK, I'll jump on the band wagon too!

Favourite Wargaming Period, and Why?

The future, because anything goes! With a bit of tweaking you can mix every historical period into a great big sci-fi jumble mix tape! Plus I do enjoy sci-fi which I only realised when I got to my 20’s.

28mm Steampunk by Spartan Games

Dystopian Legions!!I I saw this on  Ady's Praetorian XXIV blog and thought I'd share it here for my steampunk friends. 

Here is the quick run down from the Spartan Games' site: 

"DYSTOPIAN LEGIONS is a fast-paced, action-packed 28mm scale tabletop game set in the exciting world of Dystopian Wars, where Victorian super science fiction has created a fascinating and brutal arena for a deadly world war."

The Thunder Guard's arrival on the Grand Cruiser Praetoriae Vindictam.

(Four posts in two days- staying at home with a cold has done wonders form my blog!)

Here is a short narrative of an officers of the fleet regiment's initial meeting with several Thunder Guard officers aboard the Grand Cruiser Praetoriae Vindictam.

Expeditionary Lieutenant Creswell opened the wardroom hatch and stepped into the anteroom for the fortnightly officer’s game of Mordian Holdem. Seated at the long-table in the room's centre, were five cavalry officers from various regiments of the Thunder Guard. Creswell was momentary caught off guard. He had not expected the Thunder Guard to embark until the following rotation, but obviously they had arrived early.